Monday, July 22, 2013

Ever since I tried The Lord of the Rings board game by FFG I've fallen for Cooperative board games. Being on the lookout for any new one that may strike my interest, the interest of my gaming group, or even the interest of my Wife and Kids (now 8 and 5 years old).

I have Kingdom Death: Monster on the way...pretty sure that will be a non-starter for the Kiddos and Wife. I have numerous Dreadball teams having gotten one for each of the kids. Still they are a few years from really enjoying Dreadball. Then I discovered "Legendary" the new Deck building card game by Upperdeck.

Basics of the game work like this, 1-5 players take on the game. There is a Mastermind Villain that the heroes are trying to take down. This Mastermind has a Scheme (Read as what nefarious plot they are trying to achieve). They also have other Villains and Henchmen assisting them in their goals. Opposing them are 5-6 heroes.

The players play these Heroes but not in the way that you would initially think. This is a Deck "Building" Game. So with the expansion there are 32 playable heroes, 31 different ones and Wolverine get 2 versions...well because his is Wolverine. Each of these heroes has 14 cards. So the players select the 5 heroes they want to use and all of those cards go into a "Hero Deck" All the players get their own personal deck which starts with a 12 SHIELD agent / trooper cards that can be spent to recruit the "Hero" cards that come into play. So as these Heroes are recruited, they are added to that players personal discard pile. When their current player's deck is empty they reshuffle all their discarded cards to restock their draw deck.

There is a high replay value as with the Dark City expansion there are 9 Mastermind villains with 16 Schemes, 13 villain groups, and 6 Henchmen groups. Which can be randomized, or even pre-selected if you wanted to re-create a major Marvel storyline (Avengers movie, Inferno, Legacy Virus, Civil War...etc)

Here are a list of the Heroes currently in the game...

Black Widow

Captain America

Cyclops

Deadpool

Emma Frost

Gambit

Hawkeye

Hulk

Iron Man

Nick Fury

Rogue

Spiderman

Storm

Thor

Wolverine (X-Men)

Angel

Bishop

Blade

Cable

Colossus

Daredevil

Domino

Elektra

Forge

Ghost Rider

Iceman

Iron Fist

Jean Grey

Nightcrawler

Professor X

The Punisher

Wolverine (X-Force)

In October the next small release comes out "Fantastic Four" which will is rumored to have 5 heroes, 2 schemes, 2 masterminds, a villain group and a henchmen group. Those are rumored to be Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, Human Torch, and Silver Surfer. Rumor has it they plan on one Major and two minor releases every year, and they have plenty of heroes left...

Guardians of the Galaxy (bet the are a small set release to go along with the movie next year)

The Box says ages 14+...though after watching a couple of videos of the gameplay, I'm fairly certain my 8 year old can handle it. My 5 year old, will play with Dad, or have a hand of his own face up for me to help him with.Should be getting the game in a couple of daysHere is a video of the basic gameplay...looking forward to flipping some cards with you.